1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to bathing devices. More particularly, the present invention pertains to bathing devices for bedridden or otherwise immobile persons. Even more particularly, the present invention pertains to movable bathing devices for bedridden or otherwise immobile persons which permit the patient to be bathed while supported within a contoured form.
2. Prior Art
Administering baths to bedridden patients has long been a tedious and difficult chore for attending personnel as well as a source of considerable discomfort for the patient. Transferring the patient into a conventional bathtub presents great physical hazards and difficulties. Bed baths, while not physically hazardous, are generally messy and unpleasant for the attendant as well as for the patient, and are, moreover, less efficacious then those bathing techniques in which the body is immersed in the bathing waters.
The prior art contains several devices intended to combine the physical safety of a bed bath with the benefits of total immersion into the bathing solution. However, the equipment disclosed in the prior art is cumbersome and requires operational skill.
Other tubs and apparatus of the prior art provide either for only partial immersion, or for immersion by means of cumbersome hydraulic equipment. In all cases, the patient is suspended on a flat or angular support structure disposed within the tub.
Therefore, considerable benefits would be provided by a hospital bathtub which would permit total immersion of a patient into bathing solutions without the use of hydraulic lifting equipment. Further advantages would be realized by providing a hospital-type bathtub into which patients may be transferred easily, and which would provide patients the pleasurable and restful experience of being bathed, totally immersed, in a contoured tub, having no artificial support members therein.